


Karma Police

by welltimedsmiles



Category: DCU
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-27
Updated: 2006-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-24 00:26:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/256785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welltimedsmiles/pseuds/welltimedsmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bang, Bang. This is how the future ends. [2,100 words]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Karma Police

Bang, Bang.

And that’s how the future ends.

Her breath is hot against his neck and there’s blood slick on his face. Cass kisses Tim as she pulls the gun from his hand, her foot pushing Cain’s face over and more blood gushes onto the barely lit ground.

“Thank you, Tim.” He’s not Robin anymore and he assumes she knows better than to call him that now.

He plays scenarios over in his head. He does this for hours as he sits limply next to her in the helicopter.

Bruce took Dick back. Even Jason Todd of the psychotic rampage got some benefit of the doubt. Bruce _could_ forgive, or at least deal.

Tim cannot and Cass...oh Cass, she reminds him of why maybe he has stopped forgiving. It’s not something he realized until his finger pulled on that trigger and the sound rang in his ears. He’s heard more shots of gunfire in his life than most people want to think about, but this one felt like it was ripping through him, stripping away his skin as he killed David Cain.

“Think of everything he’s used... everything he’s taken.”

It turns his stomach for him to hear her talk that way about Batman. Not that he can argue; he’s forgotten how. He remembers beautiful girls caught in the crossfire and boys turned into trophies to inspire everyone else; he forgets that everyone asked to be in the crusade and that it’s about something greater.

“And all for what? The Black Mask, The Joker, all those evil people that we stalked from the shadows. There’s no justice in his way for their evil.”

She presses her lips against his; a clumsy move for someone otherwise so graceful. Her legs straddle his lap tightly; she easily pins and presses him against the seat. When they break apart, she looks at him with big eyes and her mouth barely opens.

“No Tim, there is never justice with them.”

***

They burn his costume; she smiles a bit and says, as she pulls him away from the ashes,

“At least you’re not another regret turned into a trophy.”

Even though he’s been standing numbly beneath the water of the shower for almost an hour, he still thinks he can feel Cain’s blood on his arms. On his face. On places that science and reason tell him it couldn’t be.

Cassandra sits on the sink, a soft hotel bathrobe hanging from her thin shoulders. Scars decorate her skin and he tries not to think about that. When he does, it makes everything a little bit easer; he can tell himself that the man he shot did that to her, did _this_ to her. Maybe that’s enough, to have some faith in the justifications he can string together.

Her hands are strong as she pulls him out of the bath, his skin sensitive and burned from the water and scrubbing. There are flecks of blood staining the marble.

“It will get better.” She embraces him, her robe dropping to the floor. Her skin is warm and burning against his. Somehow, even though it makes him want to scream, it feels better.

She tastes like death; like Steph, like Kon, like all the things that Tim’s not allowed himself to feel or think for the past two years. They push and pull until Tim’s pressing her up against the wall of the bathroom. She moans and he’s smart enough to know it’s all a part of the game. Cass hasn’t committed even the most minor of spontaneous actions in a long time. That control is intoxicating and Tim suddenly, after so long of being tethered to his forced acceptance of chaos, wants that control more than anything else.

  


***

He wears boots, jeans, and an old Radiohead t-shirt. It's never been worn; either folded up in the bottom of a trunk or hanging perfectly in the back of his closet. It never seemed to be the right time to wear the shirt Kon gave him for his last birthday. As he pulls on a pair of pair of boots he designed himself from some old Waynetech polymers and standard steel-toed work boots from the local Army & Navy store, he remembers Steph and her homemade costume of eggplant fabric and dollar store work boots. How he wishes he had given her more dates free from masks and stake-outs.

“That’s not very intimidating, let alone very protective.” Cass spins and nearly lands a kick to his ribs, he falls and rolls instead, neatly sweeping her off her feet.

“Don’t intend to let anyone get that close.” He tries to stop his heavy breathing, the way his pulse still races wildly even during sparring. He lunges toward her. In the past year Tim’s improved a lot. He’s good, but she’ll always be better. “Plus, I’ve got you.” They flip and she pins him effortlessly against the carpet. Strands of her hair fall into his face.

“Oh Tim, don’t you know better than that by now?” she punctuates this with a kiss and he thinks he understands.

There are crusades; holy wars carried out by people willing to break themselves and the world in the name of a justice that Tim can no longer believe in. With justice comes faith; something they no longer feel graced enough to know. Something maybe neither of them ever _really_ had, because they understand doubt and there’s no room for that in the most holy of wars. Instead, they intend to play clean-up with the ugly debris and serve something other than higher ideals. Something that serves the only people they have.

He pushes himself up against her. Their lips collide so hard their teeth click, and as he pulls away he scrapes her bottom lip.

“I’ve got me,” he says easing his breath and slowing his pulse.

She smiles.

  


***

  
“Man, it took me a more than a month to find you, and that was after the month it took me to realize you had completely dropped off the face of the Earth. Not to mention the year you spent doing the Bat Family European Vacation.” Bart hops down from the feet of the statue where he was perched, sliding out of the shadows as Tim walks up the garden path.

People still leave flowers and light candles around Superboy’s golden feet.

“Well yeah,” is all Tim can offer. Even for Bart it’s the most he has now.

“I’m just saying; I... we’ve been worried.”

“We?” Bart cannot lie; it’s one of the most beautiful things about him. Even now that he stands a few inches taller than Tim and his wiry body is a bit broader, he’s still Bart.

“Cassie. She helped me figure out what was going on. I mean, she’s busy with her entire thing, which is cool, but she wanted to help _me_.” Bart makes it clear that Cassie’s done with Tim, and he gets that. Because Cassie’s dealing with this in her own way. In the way that Tim thought he could deal with it.

“What did she say?”

Bart sighs, running his hand through his hair and looking down at his feet, “She says Kon would be ashamed of you and she’s ashamed of you and that you’re a disgrace to Robin legacy, Young Justice, Teen Titans, and are worse than your crazy future self. Also, FYI, that was the nice G-rated version of Cassie’s essay on why she currently hates Tim Drake the most.” Bart finishes his words breathless; always speeding on faster than the universe can carry him. Even now.

“And what do you think?” Tim leans carefully against the base of the statue. He picks up wilting flowers and watches as the bits float to the ground, sending sparks up as they land on still burning commemorative candles. They briefly light up Bart and, for the first time, Tim really does get how different Bart is. Burnt brown hair still falls down over golden eyes, but there’s less twitching constant motion, a sense of a life finally stopped in the moment. It makes him ache in so many ways.

“I think… I think that we’ve all changed. I mean, well, some of us more obviously than others, but stuff happened. Stuff we can’t ignore and you know, we have to deal. Cassie’s doing her repression thing, I’m reading some books, doing some stuff, Mia’s gone off on some thing with the other Green Arrow. Who knows what everyone else is doing?” Bart pauses and glances at his feet again before looking back up at Tim, “I know you think this is how you’re going to deal and I do not want to invalidate your self perception… but I know this isn't you. Not the Tim I always looked to lead me, not the one that used to hide all the sodas from me at Happy Harbor, and not the one that took me on a walk wondering if I knew what I was doing.”

“Maybe that’s not me _anymore_.” Bart just shakes his head.

“That’s not how it works. Cassie’s always going to be that kid with the goggles and nappy hair, no matter how quickly she keeps filling up meta human prisons. I’m always gonna be me, no matter how slow I take things; and no matter what, you’re always gonna be Tim Drake.” He shrugs and pulls Tim in close, a hug that makes Tim’s entire body ache. “Whatever man, you’re always a Titan and all that. Not that I’m a Titan anymore but, you know, on that metaphysical level.”

Tim walks away, taking his time through the streets of Metropolis.

Cass is waiting on him. He knows she worries that Bart will sway him; remind him of everything that, from a certain perspective, is wrong with his life at the moment.

Theirs is an existence based on doubts.

Maybe Bart has it right, maybe he’s been Tim Drake all along. Never really as committed as he thought. Never full of the desperate faith it takes to commit to such things. Or at least, that’s a nice lie to weave, telling yourself you never belonged once you can’t go home again.

  


***

Cass never asks him anything about that or his decision. She never expresses doubts with words. Always with soft movements of her lips when they return from a mission, from the way she smiles when Tim slides out of whatever location he’s been buried at. It’s the desperation in their hands that always reminds him of what they’ve lost.

She talks about Steph and she grins a bit, landing a punch so hard on Tim’s jaw that he feels bones crack. She asks him about Kon, about his dad, about Batman or Jason or anything she can think of when she doesn’t think he’s doing as well as he should.

“Steph wanted to teach me to read,” she says, sweeping her leg around quickly and nearly knocking him off balance.

“My dad wanted to take me to football games and go on camping trips. I was too busy being Robin.” He almost adds how he’s not sorry. He’s also upped the ante and she grins as he flips above her, avoiding a staff blow to his midsection.

“My father made me a killer. I’m not sorry. Not anymore.” He drops from a beam above her, his feet pressing down on her shoulders with a hard crack and she throws him with a grunt. They tumble on the floor, reduced to silent hard motions as they never quite get the other completely pinned. Once upon a time, he’d have given in to her, knowing that in the end she’d win eventually. She will this time too, and it will take the pop of his shoulder as she jerks his arm behind him and the howl of pain he can’t control to get it to end.

As she pulls him up by his good arm, she only says, “You shouldn’t scream.”

That night she will sit on the floor and watch as he twists his injured arm around, biting his lip and trying to ignore the tears streaming from his eyes. After a few minutes, she kisses him along the side of his face, picking up the tears that he couldn’t stop. She pulls him into her, letting him lean against her and wrapping them both in the soft worn cotton of her robe.

“It’s a different world for us now. It’s all going to be okay.”

He knows his biggest mistake, the one she would punish him most for, is to take her at her word completely. Instead he just says,

“I’ll make it.”

[the end]

**Author's Note:**

> A/N (1): _Robin_ #150 AU.  
>  A/N (2): Thanks to C & S for the beta work. Title from the Radiohead song  
> Disclaimer: All belong to DC Comics, Warner Brothers, Wolfman, Puckett and so on.


End file.
